 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
As Max watched the digital countdown clock display its ever-changing numbers, he ran long fingers
through his black, unruly hair, managing to muss it even more.
Grace was standing by at a computer terminal. After a bad start, when Grace’s menagerie of robotic
entities had thoroughly annoyed the chief engineer, he’d come to respect her more than any other
person he’d ever known. There were times when he wondered which he liked most about her: her
intuitive
intelligence or her mature beauty.
“You look like you could use a drink,” he growled, as the clock counted off the seconds, and around
him, the engine-room servomechanisms clicked and hummed in readiness.
“I feel as if I need a drink,” Grace said.
Rosen was a tall, thin, dark, strong-nosed, wiry-haired Jew. His heavy beard gave him a five-o’clock
shadow all day long, and his black hair was just beginning to be peppered with gray. On him it looked
almost distinguished. He’d worked with Harry Shaw from the beginning in the development of the
Shaw Drive, which propelled the starship through time and space.
In contrast to Max’s disheveled state, Grace Monroe looked as if she’d spent the past few hours with a
makeup, hair care, and fashion expert instead of at Max’s side as they checked the computations again
and again.
Grace was in her mid fifties. Her mature, full-bodied beauty was set off by her mauve suit, accented at
the throat by a paisley scarf. Once, when she’d entered Rosen’s engineering sector dressed impeccably,
he had growled, “Don’t you have any work clothes?”
“These are my work clothes,” she’d told him. Max sighed, wished for that drink, then looked down as
something rubbed at his shin. The thing was catlike in appearance. In fact, Cat, one of Grace’s robotic
creations, had been experimenting of late in growing hair, and the attempt had not been totally
successful. Cat looked to Max like a blue Tinkertoy feline with hog bristles protruding from its odd,
elastic body, composed of material that Dr. Monroe had developed when she was head of Research and
Development at Transworld Robotics, Inc. back on Earth.
“Damned Cat,” Max growled, but there was no fury there, as there once had been. True to Grace’s
design objective, Cat had pulled the ship out of the fire for them, almost literally, by altering its shape
to allow for close-quarters repairs of the rocket-firing system wheSnpitrhite of Americawas falling
rapidly
into a sun.
The digital clock now showed less than one minute to go when Captain Rodrick’s voice came over the
communicator. “Chief, any problem if we go on hold for thirty minutes?”
Rosen looked at Grace, agony on his features, wondering what had gone wrong. “It’s just that the light
isn’t right down below,” Chief Rodrick said.
Rosen snarled and rolled his eyes helplessly. He knew that a filming crew was on the planet’s surface,
waiting to record thSepirit of America‘s landing for posterity.
“No problem,” he said, but his face showed disagreement. Putting off the landing to wait for better
light for recording the event didn’t rate a very high priority with him.
